


A Trophy Father

by TrilesForMiles



Category: Degrassi the Next Generation
Genre: Abuse, Adulthood, Angst, Childbirth, Daddy Issues, Dedication, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, New Family, Oneshot, Past Abuse, triles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrilesForMiles/pseuds/TrilesForMiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Miles, we’re going to love that baby more than we’ve ever loved anything else. I know it already. And that’s all that matters…nobody ever said we have to be trophy fathers…" Triles fatherhood fluff set way into their future! Oneshot. Happy birthday Glo!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Trophy Father

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello again everyone! I'm back with yet another birthday gift for one of my fabulous fellow Triles shippers! Happy birthday to the fabulous Glo aka Mayanovakks on Tumblr!
> 
> Hope you enjoy this disgusting Triles fluff and that your day is everything you could hope for. (For the record, it was me who anonymously asked what kind of fics you like! Lol!) Thank you for all the fabulous contributions you've made to the community. I love seeing your gifs pop up on my dash and hearing your opinions in group chat. Keep on keeping on, girlfriend! 3
> 
> Slight TW for mentions of Miles abuse from his father. Other than that, this is pure vomit worthy fluffy nonsense. Enjoy!

**A Trophy Father**

Back and forth. Up and down. To and Fro. Here and there. Side to side.

Miles thought of exactly five different ways to describe the alternating directions his brain was giving to his feet. At that moment it seemed to be the only thing left he could think about that wasn't going to make him implode. Before that, he also noted that he could walk across exactly 11 of the faint squares on the linoleum floor before he reached the wall or the front desk and had to turn on his heels to walk back the other way. With the width of his steps it took between 20 and 24 to cross to the other side.

He wasn't sure exactly when or why he had turned to counting things to keep himself occupied. But if he had to guess, he would assume it was due to lack of anything else simple enough to slip through the cracks of his overburdened mind. He had seen 30 chairs get emptied, 17 get re-filled, 23 separate families, 12 different issues of the same fucking magazine, 8 of the typical pink or blue blankets, 2 bouquets of flowers, 7 nurses, 0 doctors, and no news.

"Miles, quit pacing. Your body's going to hate you in the morning."

A familiar voice warned from behind him. One that was usually so pleasant and so comforting. But with that sentence it only made Miles' skin crawl - mainly because that meant it wasn't yet morning. He took step number 23 and turned on his heels, ready to cross back to the other side.

"Too late." He muttered as he turned in his husband's direction, rubbing his throbbing temple as he neared.

The last thing he wanted to do was sit down. There were too many more steps to take and too much more time left to waste. But when Tristan put down issue number 4 of that shitty magazine to catch his wrist as he walked by there was a silent forbiddance he couldn't defy. Miles accompanied the seat to Tristan's right and buried his face in his hands, propping his elbows on his wobbling knees. The hunched over position that put him in gave Tristan just enough access to twist around in his chair and rub at Miles' shoulders. Not sure he wanted to be touched Miles seriously thought about pulling away. But every hypersensitive nerve ending in his body begged him to stay right as he was. In the distressing silence Tristan's touch spoke for him, encouraging Miles to tell him what was wrong.

"God dammit. My head is killing me." Miles groaned, swallowing in an attempt to dampen his throat before it closed dry. "My stomach is churning. Heart's racing. Lungs feel like they're gonna collapse. Every muscle aches. Good thing we're in a hospital, right?"

He forced a laugh mostly for his own sake, releasing a broken breath when he realized it did absolutely nothing. The one that left Tristan's lips next was more genuine, though slight and just quiet enough to go unheard by anyone other than the two.

"I don't think there's an admittance in your near future." He assured him, remaining calm and positive during his husband's obvious panic. "You're just stressed..."

"Yeah, and I shouldn't have to be!"

Miles' voice rose. This time he did flinch away from Tristan's hands moving lower to rub small circles on his back. His entire body twitched with the sudden jerk. Tristan's hand lingered in the air for a moment, slightly taken off guard. But after a moment he simply retracted to his own lap.

"I-I shouldn't even be here." Miles continued low and distantly.

"Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now."

Although Tristan would sooner believe in unicorns than that, he couldn't help but ask for confirmation. He couldn't hide the mix of emotions in his voice - a soft plea of disbelief, a desire for confidence, a slight tinge of worry. It was all held in the same way in the full blue eyes that peered up at Miles, shadowed by deep bags that proved his own weariness. Miles sighed heavily as he lifted his head, craning his stiff neck to meet that sea-colored faith with his own eyes so bloodshot the red popped out against his typical mossy green.

"No, of course not..." He let his head shake once, dropping it momentarily before dragging it up slowly like a thousand ton weight.

" I meant I shouldn't be  _here._ Sitting. Waiting. Doing nothing. I should be i-in there...watching or helping or doing something,  _anything_!"

He was back at his feet, one hand gesturing frantically towards the closed doorway that lead from the waiting room where they were confined to the depths of the hospital. The other hand ran unsteadily through the brunette locks atop his head as he typically did when he was nervous. Desperation caught in his throat and he instantly turned away, his back to Tristan now as he looked up at the ceiling. Even after so long together he really dreaded letting Tristan see him cry. He managed to blink the tears away before they fell, limiting them to just an uncomfortable sting at the corners of his eyes until they disappeared. The pacing resumed, his feet moving even faster with his hands balled up into fists against his hips.

"There's nothing you  _can_  do, Miles."

Tristan was trying to be sympathetic. It showed in his voice. Although Miles knew that and that what he was saying was true, it still caused an uncomfortable weight to form deep in his pounding chest. Damn, it stung. Like pouring a bottle of Antiseptic on a deep cut that covered his entire body and burned underneath every sliver of skin. He could feel the heat of frustration building up, rising like steam from the lowest depths of his being.

"I can guarantee you nothing is wrong. If something was wrong, we would know."

Tristan was so confident in that fact. He didn't get it. He really, truly didn't. Oh, how Miles wished he did. With every word he said the burning inside of Miles grew higher and higher, meeting a new notch on the levels to which it climbed. It was in his swinging legs and his churning stomach. His aching muscles and overwhelmed lungs. Yet Tristan kept talking, urging it on as it licked at the bottom of his racing heart.

"Why don't you read the pamphlets the nurses gave me before you got here?"

Tristan began sifting through the stack beside him, the sound of paper sliding against each other like a wretched ringing in Miles' ears. His fingers were twitching. His entire body shaking. The heat took over his heartbeat and the speeding of his breathing entirely. It formed a lump in his throat, one that quivered beneath his trachea and slowly slid its way up like a heavy brick of verbal vomit. His lips parted but merely trembled from the violent forces of his body. Every second it creeped slower and slower, driving him absolutely crazy until...

"Oh! Here! Look at this one, honey. It says that-"

"THOSE PAMPHLETS AREN'T GOING TO MAKE ME A GOOD PARENT!"

As soon as Miles said it, everything was draining. The reddened color from his face. The intense pulsations in the veins bulging from his neck. The searing prick in every fragment of his body. All the pent up energy he had been trying to convince himself he still had to keep himself going. With his back turned to him, Tristan could see even the smallest of details as his shoulders rose and fell a little less rapidly and his fingers uncurled against his sides. He stood there, a slave to the feeling as he was unable to move. Unable to think. All he could do was purse his lips, shut his eyes, and breathe - slow, drawn out, and jagged.

Somewhere in that very hospital, possibly only just meters away a young woman was being cut up by some doctor's cold, unwelcoming hands to deliver their baby and they weren't in there with her. Miles couldn't see the operation. He couldn't hear his child's screams. His wouldn't be the first hand that held them or the first voice they heard. Their baby wasn't even born yet and he was letting the poor kid down already. Seconds into this child's life and he would already be ruled a failure. The guy who wasn't there for his kid from the very fucking beginning.

He couldn't stop there. It was like starting a race you never finished. He turned to face Tristan now, not looking completely at him but more through him as he couldn't bare to meet his waiting gaze.

"Tristan I-I don't know how to be a father!" Although it was much quieter, more desperate - Miles' voice cracked as the lump in his throat grew to extremes. "Look who I had as an example."

He gulped hard, in a way that sent vicious chills like ice through Tristan's veins. Remaining calm seemed like nothing more than a fever dream at that point but Miles tried. He tried his damn hardest. Tristan looked at him in a way that summoned him closer but his feet were practically glued to the ground. With everything closing in on him, squeezing the emotion out he began to ramble like he never had before. The words just burst out, an explosion of realness so vulnerable that he must have forgotten where he was.

"My dad was a jerk, Tris." He started slow." He really would have rather been a mayor than a good father. A mayor who supposedly gave his kids everything...except his love. And respect. Or even common decency. Because we always screwed everything up for him!"

A deep breath. Both boys begged internally for Miles to keep himself together. Not to break. Not to embrace the pain. Tristan said nothing. It wasn't his place to speak. Miles needed someone to listen to him and from the day those rings were placed on their left hands that was exactly what he was destined to be. That rock for his husband on the rare occasions where he couldn't be strong enough for the both of them. That lent shoulder when it wasn't he who needed one to bury into. That mouth with the volume turned down low to crank his ability to hear all the way up. So he sat, legs crossed and arms folded in his lap giving his utmost attention to the man falling apart before him.

"It was always... Miles, I'll try harder. Miles, it was a heated moment. Oh, Miles I didn't mean to do that! A-and it shouldn't have mattered! I'm his son! I'm his son and he hurt me and all I ever heard was... Miles, you're talking nonsense as usual. You're the problem. You're bad for your brother and sister. You're the loser who can't make this all work. This is just 'tough love'. I love you. I love you and the twins very much. BULL!"

He screamed the last word sharply in contrast to how eerily serene his tone had gotten. And then the screaming turned into the first series of tears that appeared out of nowhere. He really, truly hated getting emotional in front of Tristan but this time he let them fall. He had no other choice. They didn't work their way through his tear ducts and warn him with their gentle nudges. They arrived with building snivels that choked out every so often and lurched his entire torso forward a bit. They were quiet and mild, making his tightened jaw quiver every few words as they slid down his cheeks like raindrops on a car window. He could still contain them if he tried, but the will to do so was wearing down thin.

" He never listened to me when I needed him to. Nobody ever listened to me! Not my mum...It was always so hard to believe that he could deliberately, intentionally hurt me. But he did. He did all the time. He was a bully. He-he bullied everyone. Nobody ever opened their eyes! They just kept their heads in the sand. Every day I just wanted to get in my car and drive as far away as possible. No kid should be living that way. His apologies were worthless. He didn't care about us. We were just his his props. And when we didn't behave exactly perfectly he lashed out at us and tried to offer some bullshit excuse afterwords. As if he cared who he fucking hurt..."

By then he was really, truly crying. Any liquid he had left in his body was being cast out his swollen eyes, leaving his body slightly dizzy and unstable. He heaved trying to catch his breath but it only made it worse. The more he spoke, the more real it became and the more he truly began to realize what he was so worked up about. He was trembling, and not in a mild way like his fidgeting legs earlier but violently. His words were so rushed between tears that Tristan could barely make out what he was saying. But he knew. He knew from the way his husband was unraveling in space - every change in his body language and the unmistakable slap of pain in his distorted face. It was like opening a shaken champagne bottle. Once the cork is released, you can't stop all the contents from spilling.

"I HATE him. I wish I could  _destroy_  him. I do. I-I want to erase him so he can't hurt anyone else ever again. But I can't! I can't do anything! Just like I can't do anything now for my own kid! That man...that  _monster_...made me, Tris. Okay I-I have that inside me! What if...What if I turn out to be just as bad of a dad as him?"

Miles swore under his breath as he reached up to vigorously wipe the liquid shame from his face. That worry was in the back of his mind all along, festering for the quickest nine months he had ever experienced as he watched the stomach of their child's birth mother swell before his eyes. He hadn't realized how much he truly believed it until that final day of waiting came. Until he got the call that pulled him from his office and dumped him in this incredibly intimidating waiting room to pace back and forth, relying on any little distraction to keep him functioning. He had to admit that saying out loud did have some sort of therapeutic element loosening the knot that was formed by the distress. But he still averted his attention from Tristan, feeling incredibly self conscious to say the least.

In that moment he was back in high school. Standing somehow strong yet completely broken in front of his confused little brother and a shattered mug with a hand shaped bruise forming on his cheek. Once again he was torn between wanting to be left alone to deal with his boiling rage the way he had been used to and for once, just wanting someone to hold him. To consume him in their body heat and assure him everything was going to be okay. He never got that back in his childhood. But luckily before he could even make the choice himself his husband was behind him, turning him around and wrapping him in an embrace so strong yet gentle in an unusual way that could never be described. Miles couldn't hug back, he only laid his hands and head against the other boy and tried to swallow his troubles between unsteady breaths. He didn't realize he had been gasping for air until he felt Tristan's chest moving beneath him - rising and falling at such a consistent pace that it was hard not to find the normality comforting.

"Miles." Tristan whispered near his temple, and although it had to have been the thousandth time he'd heard his name that day this time had such an unusual smoothness that it brought an instant scene of serenity to the atmosphere. "Miles, honey it's going to be okay. You are nothing like your father."

"Yeah, well then why aren't I in there right now Tristan?! Tell me how that makes me any more of a reliable father than him!"

"Because you can't be. Not during a C-Section. That's not something either of us can control. It's totally normal with young pregnancies." Tristan murmured, his words unrehearsed yet flowing so naturally. "But if that was you would your father be out here right now this concerned with your well-being and probably crying harder than his own baby?"

Miles was still. There was no verbal response, no head-shaking. But they both knew the answer, and after a calming inhale Tristan tugged on Miles until the back of his knees hit the hard plastic of the seats. Tristan went down, pulling Miles into his lap at a slight angle and placing his chin on his shoulder as if the two were puzzle pieces meant to mold together so perfectly.

"We are doing a wonderful thing." Tristan reminded him. "For that girl in there much too young and unprepared to have a baby and for ourselves. We're building a family. A family that we've both hoped for and dreamed about our entire lives. We wanted this baby. We searched for this baby. We worked hard for this baby.  _You_  worked hard for this baby, and that already makes you so much better at this parenting thing than your dad could ever be."

"You really think so?" Miles asked, the insecurity showing in his voice just barely cracking enough to show the glimmer of hope underneath

"I know so. It's not always going to be easy. We're new at this and we're both probably going to screw up - a lot..."

He felt Miles tense up on top of him and nuzzled his head into the crook of his neck affectionately.

"...But we can't worry about those things before they happen. We have to think about the good things. The things we have to look forward to. All the little cuddles and kisses. Playing games. Reading stories. Chasing them around when they start walking. Hearing 'I love you daddy' every day. Finding crayon scribbles everywhere. Sending them off to school. Soccer games or dance recitals or whatever they get into..."

"Do you think they'll let me teach them to play guitar?" Miles asked, lifting his head slightly to show the wishful smile playing on his lips.

"They might." Tristan chuckled softly, reveling in the way his husband's mood seemed to shift at the thought. "Try getting them interested young. In a few months you can try playing for them at bedtimes."

"Mmm Only if you sing along with it. Your voice is way better than mine."

"That's a lie and you know it." Tristan was quick to retaliate. "Miles, we're going to love that baby more than we've ever loved anything else. I know it already. And that's all that matters...nobody ever said we have to be trophy fathers..."

"...But we have to try. Promise me."

Tristan's head nodded and in response, Miles' stomach filled with butterflies. Miles was quiet, relaxed, enjoying the newfound calmness instilled in the moment as they sat together with their eyes shut, resting their tired heads against one another. Tristan always had this way of changing even the cloudiest of days into a bright sky with such little struggle. Every time he did it the sensation that took over was like Miles was falling in love with him from the start, all over again.

"Mr. Milligan?" A woman's voice, chipper yet professional snapped them out of their moment.

"Yes?" Both boys questioned at once, whipping their heads to the source.

Miles jumped to his feet, pulling Tristan up beside him as the nurse stared in uncertainty. It took her a moment before she caught on and the slightest hint of a grin could be seen tempting the dimples on her cheeks.

"Would you gentlemen like to meet your daughter?"

"...We...have a daughter." Miles repeated her news to himself slowly as if trying to process the reality that their waiting game was finally over.

She only nodded, offering a polite 'mmhm' before expressing with her hand that the couple should follow her away. She turned over her shoulder and with a gentle push at his lower back from Tristan, Miles started after her. Tristan's hand reached out for Miles' urgently, giving it a firm squeeze that was met so evenly their knuckles turned white. Everything was in such a sudden daze, the people passing so blurry and his movements so effortless he almost wondered if his ridiculous exhaustion had called him into a dream.

But then he was in a room - a tight, cramped space where nearly everything was an alarming shade of white. There was chaos at every corner - cluttered machines and competing voices and a hand full of people ranging from complete strangers in scrubs to those he clearly recognized. Yet amongst the madness he could only see one thing. The little bundle swaddled in pale purple fleece being lifted from the bin and being carried his way. With an unannounced gasp he turned over his shoulder, glancing at Tristan as if to ask permission. Tristan urged him with the forward motions of his chin, knowing there was nothing more in the world that Miles needed.

Miles had always thought newborn babies looked somewhat like aliens. But this one was something different entirely. He peered down at the slight weight being placed in his cradled arms to see the most beautiful face he had ever seen - though, Tristan's was a close second. Complete with delicate eyelids still closed and ten fingers and toes so tiny they didn't even seem real. The wailing coming from her parted lips broke his heart already.

"She...she's crying." He announced turning to his partner, and Tristan nearly melted at the amount of concern already showing in his face as if the idea of his daughter being upset was the worst occurrence in the world.

"Better get used to it." Tristan giggled, peering over Miles' shoulder as the brunette quickly brought his focus back on his little girl.

Instinct took over and with a nervous laugh he bounced her, so gently and slowly as if worried she might break. In a few minutes time her noises faded to a faint whimper and with an expression of both triumph and disbelief Miles stared down at her.

"She likes me."

He was grinning like an idiot, in the rare way that showed off his teeth that Tristan had grown to realize was usually saved just for him. He supposed he would get used to having to share it.

"Of course she does. You're her daddy." Tristan wrapped his arms around Miles' waist gently from behind, stilling him momentarily to place a kiss on his cheek. "And you're going to be a great one."

Tristan looked from his daughter to the girl across the room, laying in the hospital bed admiring them from afar. She looked absolutely drained, yet happy - with a thankful expression on her face that told him she was nowhere near ready to be a mother. From there he looked at Miles, remembering how little time had passed since he saw that same look upon him. Now his face was bright and curious. Not a doubt in his mind as he poked at their child with his left hand, the wedding band around his ring finger seeming to gleam more than normal underneath the bright lights. Their lives were certainly about to change, and although it was still totally obvious that Miles was scared shitless - he had never seemed more prepared.


End file.
